What does “paying extra” mean? And how can you explain to your customer that he is not paying “extra”?

Products have a combined price with different currencies: money, nature, labour and trade. When you buy a product normally you pay with money, for example € 100,-. It is a shame to notice that too often someone who made your product had to pay with unfair labour circumstances and nature paid with being destroyed. There are also other ways to pay, without money, you trade a product or service for example a painter who paints the house of a gardener who does the garden of the painter.

A Fairtrade product might cost more money, but the person who made the product received a fair price. Instead of paying ‘extra’ your customer pays the normal price, which is fair for each person who worked to create that product.

Interesting about an eco-effective product is that it does not necessarily costs more money for the buyer, because you make effective use of your resources.Examples to lower the price for your customer:

A fibre grown in a mixed-crop culture makes it difficult for insects to form pests. The farmer has multiple incomes from his land and he does not have to use insecticides. Which makes your raw materials less expensive.

You rent products like a library

You do your marketing and sell your products through crowdfunding instead of spending a large budget on shouting campaigns.

Most of the time it cost more effort to create environment friendly products, which results in a higher price, because we are not used to creating it. You could see it as an innovation. Companies that innovate sell innovative products that are more expensive anyway because they spend time on R&D to stay ahead in the market. No matter if it is an environment friendly product or not. Other companies copy the products that are known for years and this makes the price lower, because they do not have to use their budget on R&D. To make a ‘known not-environment friendly product’ with environment friendly materials (which are innovative products) makes the price higher again, because these materials are not known for years. When environment friendliness becomes the norm the price will show this as well. But what if your customer does not agree with paying a higher ‘money’ price for the same product, just because the maker now has fair labour circumstances or your company does not harm the environment anymore? You could consider adding an extra value to your product that makes it worth paying the ‘extra’ price, for example:

You create a product that has multiple uses; your customer can combine his budgets of different products in one.